


objects not found in nature

by patrokla



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: Episode: s01e10 Nobody Is Ever Missing, Gen, hurt/comfort but the comfort is deeply menacing, insinuations about...yknow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:15:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27683404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrokla/pseuds/patrokla
Summary: "This isn’t Chappaquiddick, son. There’s no good will out there for you. If this leaves the room -"or, there's only one thing standing between Kendall Roy and total ruin.
Relationships: Kendall Roy & Logan Roy
Comments: 9
Kudos: 18





	objects not found in nature

**Author's Note:**

> This is a slight rewrite of the final scene in s1e10, which I just finished watching and have...many feelings about. Title snagged from the wikipedia page on surface gravity.

When Marcia and Amir slip out of the room, Kendall becomes certain that there will be no getting out of this. 

It’s almost a relief to understand that, to have Logan looming over him, vast and imposing. He is, as ever, the object around which the room has been arranged. The one around whom Kendall must, will, and is arranging himself. 

“How do you think this would look,” Logan says, “how would it look, you in the driver’s seat with some drugged-up young man next to you. An envelope full of cash in his pocket? How do you think that would _play_?”

“I - I didn’t -“ He can’t actually bring himself to look up at his father. He keeps feeling this phantom sensation, blood trickling from the cut on his wrist into the creases of his palm. It’s not actually bleeding. He doesn’t think it’s actually bleeding. “Not good.”

“No,” Logan says with a mirthless laugh, “no, it would not look good. This isn’t Chappaquiddick, son. There’s no good will out there for you. If this leaves the room -“

Kendall opens his mouth, but there’s nothing to say. He’s right. The press would flay him alive, and Waystar Royco’s newspapers, and radio shows, and fleet of fucking local tv stations would lead the way. Logan might let them. Would. Would let them. 

He would have nothing, if this got out. Really nothing, this time. A nobody with nothing. 

“Hey,” Logan says, moving closer. Voice the kind of gentle reserved for only the rarest moments in Kendall’s childhood, and almost never directed at him. He’s trembling, he realizes distantly. Shivering. There’s river water on his hands, his shirt is soaked through.

“Listen,” Logan says, and his hand comes crashing down onto Kendall’s shoulder. He feels grounded by the heat flooding through his sweater. Pinned down by Logan’s fingers pressing against muscle and bone. 

“Tell Sandy you’re out.” His tone is matter of fact, but still gentle. It’s an order. Easy to follow. Makes sense. “Tell Stewy the thing looks like a shit show. Go to the desert, dry yourself out.”

 _Dry out_. It sounds good. Warm. He’s chilled right to the bone, wet and numb. He can taste river water and blood in his mouth. 

“You have not been yourself,” Logan tells him, and that - that feels like a lie. Kendall is beginning to understand that this is all there is to him. He knows his father knows the truth of him, too, so it really is a lie, but it’s a kind one.

Maybe the kindest thing Logan has ever done for him. He doesn’t look up at him, but he nods, and Logan’s grip tightens.

“Good boy. Good. That’s my boy.”

His hand is very warm.


End file.
